How to stop cue audio from going to Monitor AND Master? - Traktor Pro 3, MS Windows 11 Home

qirex___ · 2025-02-16T17:50:32+00:00

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When I press the cue audio button (the headphones button), Traktor Pro 3 sends the audio signal to both the Output Master and the Output Monitor. How do you send the audio to just the Output Monitor?

This question regards a Traktor Pro 3 install on a Windows 11 Home OS.

Below is the Output Routing. Output Master is a set of speakers, Output Monitor is a pair of headphones. When the cue audio button is deactivated, the signal only goes to Output Master. But when the cue audio button is activated, it goes to both Output Monitor and Output Master - i.e., I can hear the music in both the speakers and the headphones.

Below is the audio setup. The "High Definition Audio Device (WASAPI…" is the standard sound card. I tried using "ASIO4all," but it doesn't fix the problem and just removes the headphones as an option for any Output Routing.

Here is the mixer with the cue audio button enabled (blue headphones circled in red).

Here are the cue mix settings (this has nothing to do with the issue, but lots of responses to similar posts ask to see this anyways).

Thanks in advance for any useful info. Please let me know any questions if further info is needed.

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PK The DJ

You can't just use your computer's built in stereo audio interface. You have to use one that has at least four channels - two for master and two for cue.

qirex___

Since Traktor Pro 3 downloads to and installs on a computer, what other stereo audio interface can be used? Are there any virtual audio interfaces that work well with Traktor Pro 3, for example?

Kubrak

You may use any audio interface that has four channels out (or more), if you want master out and monitor out. You may also want few input channels…

And of course you must be able to connect that interface to your computer….

qirex___

The problem still persists even when the audio interface has four or more channels. See pictures below. After several hours of work learning how to use VoiceMeeter and VB Audio software tools, the audio is now split into four channels - two for Output Monitor, and two for Output Master. The top two arrows indicate to which two of VoiceMeeter's virtual devices these four channels are sending their signals. Output Monitor is being sent to VoiceMeeter virtual device 2, and Output Master is being sent to VoiceMeeter virtual device 1. When the cue audio button (headphones) is set to "off," signal appears in virtual device 1 (Output Master) and zero signal appears in virtual device 2 (Output Monitor). This is the correct result, but scroll down to see why this multi-channel approach doesn't solve the actual problem.

When the cue audio button is set to "on" (i.e. headphones turn blue), signal appears in both VoiceMeeter virtual device 2 (Output Monitor) AND VoiceMeeter virtual device 1 (Output Master). The bottom arrows show that the signal remains in Output Master, which is an incorrect result. This is the same problem that occurred with using the two-channel approach and the computer's built-in WASAPI audio interface. The problem therefore appears to be with Traktor's cue audio feature, not the number of channels in the output.

Are there any other settings to adjust that can make Traktor Pro's cue audio feature work as advertised? Traktor Pro's documentation writes very little about this.

Kubrak

Computer has only two channels. At least most computers. Virtual mixer like VoiceMeeter will not change it…

You need to buy audio interface. There are hundreds of them. NI offers this:

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/audio-interfaces/komplete-audio-6/

Or simple controller with audiointerface:

https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/traktor/dj-controllers/traktor-z1/

And many other interfaces and controllers. The above is not suggestion or recomendation, just example of what you might need.

qirex___

Following up on this, and for reference of anyone else in a similar situation: You can use third-party audio software to separate Output Main audio from Output Monitor audio using just the computer's two-channel sound card. This enables cue audio monitoring to work as intended without any new hardware. The approach I developed requires setting the mixer mode to "external" and using third-party audio software for EQ, fading, and cue audio monitoring. It still uses most of Traktor Pro 3's other features like track loading, scrubbing, tempo, sync, keylock, etc. While it's not the most convenient setup, it enabled me to DJ with cue audio monitoring entirely within my computer. This enables me to do things like, for example, make a DJ mix with cue audio monitoring while seated on a long flight.

My solution involved one free third-party audio software called VoiceMeeter (mentioned in my post above) and another audio software for which I had to pay a small amount of money. Since the rules of the Native Instruments community forum don't allow advertising of third-party products or services, please DM me for a full explanation of how it works and which software I used. I hope to post a YouTube video about it soon, and once I do that I'll send the link to anyone interested.

Thanks to users @Kubrak and @PK The DJ for their answers, which guided me toward using third-party software tools to solve this problem.

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